By Tim O’Neil St. Louis Post-Dispatch for kpvi.com
The engineer eased open the throttle of old No. 124, bound for the Dupo yard. The grimy, hissing machine lurched forward at the head of a funeral train.
The locomotive was one of the Missouri Pacific Railroad’s last 11 steam engines, all used to haul coal from Southern Illinois mines. On April 7, 1955, it led them coupled together to the scrapping shop. Only No. 124 and its helper, No. 40, had steam up. The rest rumbled silently behind.
“At least they’re being spared the indignity of having a diesel pull them on that last mile,” said Paul Childers, a maintenance worker. It was thoughtful of Childers to consider the engines, because he and 19 others were losing their jobs. Their skills were no longer needed in Bush, a tiny station serving mines north of Carbondale. Modern diesel engines were taking over.
As No. 124 chuffed the 112 miles to Dupo, people gathered at crossings and station platforms to wave goodbye. William Bradley, a brakeman on the last run, said of the less-romantic diesel, “It doesn’t seem like a train the way it used to be.”
Pity his friend Childers was wrong about the indignity. No. 40 ran out of water just south of Dupo. A diesel switcher had to lead them into the graveyard after all.
By 1955, the St. Louis-based Missouri Pacific had eliminated steam except in Southern Illinois. Streamlined diesel-electrics began pulling their best passenger trains in 1940, and the “Mop” bought diesels in earnest after World War II. In 1953, after dousing steam service in St. Louis, the railroad demolished its roundhouse at Chouteau and Compton avenues.
For more than a century, the thunder of a steam locomotive meant power and freedom in a restless, growing nation. Farm kids could scan the shimmering rails and dream about New York or California. Steam could get them there.
Folk singers and poets shared Bradley’s lament, but not railroad executives. Steam locomotives required prodigious amounts of fuel, water and attention. They needed coaling towers, water tanks, service shops and thousands of employees to clean fireboxes, grease drive rods and flush boilers. Diesels needed cheap fuel oil.
The Pacific Railroad, forerunner of the Missouri Pacific, fired up its first locomotive in St. Louis in 1852. Its tracks never reached the Pacific Ocean, but the system eventually connected St. Louis to New Orleans, El Paso and Denver. For decades, it was the city’s biggest company. Its headquarters at 13th and Olive streets, built in 1928, towered over downtown.
The Mop bought its first diesels in 1937. Three years later, when it displayed a new blue-and-white passenger diesel at Union Station, more than 23,000 lined up see the future. By 1951, two-thirds of the railroad’s engines were diesels.
The Frisco Railroad phased out steam in 1952, the Wabash in 1953, the Pennsylvania in 1957. When No. 124 made its last run, only the Baltimore & Ohio occasionally ran steam into Union Station.
One year later, the Missouri Pacific had a robust fleet of 900 diesels. The railroad was absorbed by the Union Pacific in 1982.
A Look Back • St. Louis railroad scraps its last steam engines
Look Back 0407
About 9,000 people lined up to see one of the Missouri Pacific’s new passenger diesels at St. Louis Union Station on Feb. 11, 1940, before it went into service pulling the railroad’s best passenger trains. By 1952, only 10 percent of the Missouri Pacific’s passenger trains were pulled by steam. (Post-Dispatch)
Roundhouse in Dupo
Diesel-electrics and steam engines share the tracks at the Missouri Pacific roundhouse in Dupo in 1949. Post-Dispatch file photo
A glimpse of the future: diesel
About 9,000 people lined up to see one of the Missouri Pacific’s new passenger diesels at St. Louis Union Station on Feb. 11, 1940, before it went into service pulling the railroad’s best passenger trains. By 1952, only 10 percent of the Missouri Pacific’s passenger trains were still pulled by steam. Post-Dispatch file photo
Modern diesel in 1948
Modern, streamlined diesels pull the Colorado Eagle passenger train in 1948, eight years after the Missouri Pacific began hauling its best trains with diesels. They were quieter and much cleaner than steam engines. No more coal soot blew found its way into the passenger cars. Post-Dispatch file photo
Pacific Local stops in Webster Groves, 1946
The Pacific Local, the commuter train from Pacific, Mo., to Union Station, stops at a station in Webster Groves in January 1946. Post-Dispatch file photo
Steam engine maintenance
Engine-maintenance workers at the Missouri Pacific locomotive shop in St. Louis prepare an engine after a railroad strike ended in October 1949. Steam engines needed large numbers of workers to keep them going, a big reason why railroads abandoned steam for the cheaper, cleaner diesel-electric engines. Post-Dispatch file photo
Diesel-electric locomotive
One of the Missouri Pacific’s first diesel-electric locomotives, at work in the St. Louis rail yard in July 1937. The railroad would convert entirely to diesel in 1955, when it scrapped its last 11 steam engines. Post-Dispatch file photo
Trains in 1949
A Terminal Rail Road Association diesel switcher, at left, passes a Missouri Pacific steam locomotive near Union Station in December 1949. The sight was common in the decade after World War II, as railroads were converting from steam to diesel. Post-Dispatch file photo
Roundhouse in St. Louis
Missouri Pacific steam locomotives lined up near the roundhouse at Chouteau and Compton avenues in October 1949. Passing by is a diesel switching engine. After the railroad stopped using steam in St. Louis, it demolished the roundhouse in 1953. The last steam on the line was retired in 1955. Post-Dispatch file photo
One last run for steam engine
Missouri Pacific locomotive No. 15 at the station in Bush, Ill., about 10 miles northeast of Carbondale, shortly after making its last coal run on April 6, 1955. The next day, No. 15 and the other 10 remaining steam engines on the Missouri Pacific Railroad were hauled to Dupo to be scrapped. They were the railroad’s last steam engines, and they were retired when most American railroads were busy replacing steam with cleaner, more efficient diesel-electric locomotives. No. 15 was a 2-8-0 Consolidation model, a freight engine, built in 1905. It weighed about 220,000 pounds, enough steel for 70 Chevrolet Bel Air sedans. Photo by Lloyd Spainhower of the Post-Dispatch
Steam engines await scrapyard
The Missouri Pacific lined up its last steam locomotives at Bush, Ill., and hauled them in April 1955 to Dupo, where they were scrapped. Next to the line of doomed machines is one of the new diesels taking their place. Photo by Lloyd Spainhower of the Post-Dispatch
Saying goodbye to an era
The crew gets ready to take Missouri Pacific locomotive No. 15 on a final run hauling coal in southern Illinois on April 6, 1955. It was one of the railroad’s last 11 steam locomotives, all used to shuttle coal trains north of Carbondale, Ill. The railroad marked the occasion in a brief ceremony in the yard at Bush, Ill., north of Carbondale. Standing are (from left) trainmaster B.B. Brenton, yardmaster W.R. Turnage, Illinois division superintendent Roy W. Parker, brakeman Buck Hestand, conductor Otto Beeson, and brakeman N.C. Vaughn. In the cab are (left) fireman Ray Masters and engineer Ed Spegal. The following day, the 11 engines were hauled to the scrapyard in Dupo. Photo by Lloyd Spainhower of the Post-Dispatch
The final run
No. 40, the helper engine, belches coal smoke behind No. 124 as they pull nine others like them, all headed for the scrapping shop. In front of the helper is a tank car carrying water. That was needed because the railroad already had removed most of its trackside water tanks. The photo was taken from the tender of No. 124, in the lead. Photo by Lester Linck of the Post-Dispatch
A long line of steam engines heads for scrapyard
Locomotive No. 124 and a helper engine pull the rest of the Missouri Pacific’s last steam locomotives across the Illinois countryside on April 7, 1955, on their way to Dupo, where they were scrapped. From then on, the St. Louis-based railroad used only diesel power. Post-Dispatch file photo
A cleaner ride
Engineer J.L. Phillips talks by radio-telephone in the cab of a Missouri Pacific diesel-electric in March 1951. By then, about two-thirds of the railroad’s engines were diesels as it rapidly abandoned steam. Phillips’ working conditions were cleaner than they had been behind a smokestack. Photo by Lester Linck of the Post-Dispatch
Coaling tower falls
In a final indignity to the age and romance of steam, the Missouri Pacific blows up its last coaling tower in the St. Louis area in December 1955, eight months after retiring its last steam locomotives. The tower, in the Dupo yard, was built in 1917. The railroad’s last 11 steam locomotives were taken to Dupo in April 1955 for scrapping. Photo by Sam Caldwell of the Post-Dispatch
Read more stories from Tim O’Neil’s Look Back series.
Tim O’Neil is a reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Contact him at 314-340-8132 or toneil@post-dispatch.com